Why we’re not reviewing Brink, and why you shouldn’t buy it (yet)

The review situation for Brink was something of an unholy mess. With the game …

I know you're excited about Brink—I'm excited about it too. Unfortunately, the code arrived too late for us to play it for any significant amount of time, the state of the review code was such that I was uncomfortable rendering any kind of authoritative verdict, and there will soon be a patch released that may address most of my complaints. Or it could address none of them. The fact remains that the game reviewers have been playing for the past week will not be the same game you play at home, and that makes it impossible for me to do my job in an effective manner.

Allow me to explain what happened, and why you should take a wait-and-see approach to the game.

We just didn't have enough copies of the game

When we first received the e-mail asking what version of the game we'd prefer to look at, it's likely no one thought that the PlayStation Network would still be offline when the game launched. I made a joke about it being awkward for reviewers to ask for the PlayStation 3 version, but the grim reality is that if you wanted to try the online portion of the game, you had to play on the Xbox 360. We'll also be looking at the PC version of the game, but review codes for that won't be available until the game launches. For now, it's 360 or bust.

With only one version of the game being functional for reviews, every member of the press was given the 360 version. I was told my copy would be coming early in the week. Then it was set to arrive on Friday, but copies once again ran out. My copy of the game showed up on Saturday afternoon, and that is not enough time for me to settle in and play the game for the amount of time I need to get a feel for the often-complex mechanics and gameplay of Brink.

That being said, I did have a chance to pour some hours into the game, and what I found made the prospect of reviewing the game even less attractive.

The code is a mess

The copy of the game that went out to reviewers came on a disc, in retail packaging. We were sent the same code that you will buy in the store, but it became obvious that the game wasn't finished. Textures were ugly messes and texture pop-in was a common problem. The visual fidelity of the game world fluctuated madly while playing. Sometimes I had a glimpse of what Splash Damage was aiming for with the game's aesthetics, but more often the technical issues led to a frustratingly uneven experience.

The netcode was even worse. I don't play with the developers when reviewing an online game—I've explained my distaste for those sessions elsewhere—but I'm friends with a number of other reviewers who had access to the game. When we tried to get a co-op game together, the game collapsed in on itself. The framerate was halved, and the gameplay often stuttered. It was completely unplayable, and this was the result of adding two other players. I can't imagine what a full server would feel like. The game would also kick players off the server seemingly at random. It was a frustrating, unfinished mess, and I gave up trying to get an accurate picture of the online portion of the game after an hour or so.

The problem is that I was told the 360 version of the game would benefit from a patch released the first day of the game's release, one that would help with network performance and visual fidelity. Reading the e-mail, the patch sounded extensive, so it's impossible to know how many of the issues I experienced would be fixed before you could buy the game for yourself. How could I say anything about the game one way or the other without knowing how much of it would be fixed a few hours after my review was posted? How would it be helpful for me to render a verdict under these circumstances?

Known knowns, and unknown unknowns

There was no mention of a PlayStation 3 patch on the first day of release, although we do know that Sony still has the ability to update both games and hardware—even with the PlayStation Network still offline. I've also heard that the PlayStation 3 version of the game looked great when it was shown at PAX, with few of the problems seen in the 360 version shown to reviewers. It's possible the PlayStation 3 version of the game looks and plays better, at least before the 360 patch is released, but the copies were held back due to the inability to play online.

There is also no way of knowing how well the PC version of the game looks and plays, so the only version of the game we have access to is the one version of the game we know may be significantly improved when the first patch is released. So if you read reviews elsewhere, keep in mind that the game being played was the 360 version, and the game you'll play when it's released may look and feel much better than the version the reviewers were given.

The situation is frustrating, but there was no way we could review this in the traditional sense. The game we would have either praised or attacked will be changed before you play it for the first time. If the PlayStation 3 version is better, we have no way to know.

Don't buy the game... yet

My advice right now is to stay away from the game. The version of the game I played is a mess, and not worth your money. Keep an eye on the forums, check to see if reviews are updated as the game is patched, and then make a decision. Sadly, I'll be traveling starting on Wednesday, and the week after that I'll be out of the office taking part in E3 preview events filled with games I can't talk about. It's going to be a good long time before I can download the PC version of the game and tell you what I think.

In my opinion, that's a good thing. Let's give the game some time to breathe, to get some patches, and then we'll revisit it and see what has happened. There are hints of a good— maybe great—game here. Nothing would be better than to have the technical issues melt away to expose the fun underneath.

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War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

When creating Ultima Online, Richard Garriott had grand dreams. He and Starr Long planned on implementing a virtual ecology into their massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was an ambitious system, one that would have cows that graze and predators that eat herbivores. However, once the game went live a small problem had arisen...

War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

When creating Ultima Online, Richard Garriott had grand dreams. He and Starr Long planned on implementing a virtual ecology into their massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was an ambitious system, one that would have cows that graze and predators that eat herbivores. However, once the game went live a small problem had arisen...

I wish these companies actually finished the game before they started shipping them. The fact that this article does not rip on the company for shipping a product without working code is indicative about how bad expectations are for new releases.

Big ups for journalistic integrity on this one. Personally I'm starting to get sick of the whole install for hours >> download updates for hours >> finally get to play ethos that console gaming has become over the past few years. Was that an editorial on here a few months back maybe? Know I read that somewhere...

Big ups for journalistic integrity on this one. Personally I'm starting to get sick of the whole install for hours >> download updates for hours >> finally get to play ethos that console gaming has become over the past few years. Was that an editorial on here a few months back maybe? Know I read that somewhere...

sounds like they are computer games without keybooard and mouse. That has been going on with pc games since gamer magazines changed to cover CDs...

"Don't buy the game.. yet" would be my advice for all new release games. It has become the norm to release in an unfinished or broken state. I game a lot less than I used to specifically because of this.

I'm trying to figure out how to come to terms with the near hours of in-game footage we've seen over the last month or so, with the description above that seems to indicate the game is barely playable.

The one thing we lost with updatable games which Nintendo thankfully/unthankfully clings to is that the code you ship is final, so your game better damn well work.

In 1996 when a game shipped for PC, it was more or less done. Sometimes patches were needed to correct insidious problems, like crashing in Windows 3.X or something, but that was rare. Typically patches came about because someone had figured out how to break something spectacularly.

Games shipped with bugs in 1996 too. Huge game-breaking bugs were rare, but there were lots of titles that got patched after release. (Even classics: bug list for Master of Orion 1.0.) The big difference between then and now was that most people never got the patch.

Actually patches back then did add functionality/new features and content back in the mid 90's, I specifically remember Unreal 1, UT99, Quake2 & Quake3 all having patches. However they certainly weren't an 'unholy mess' when they shipped, and ship-dates were flexible back then. Brink seems to be falling prey to the opposite of valve-time here, in the sense that the publisher seems to want to keep to their ship date regardles of whether the game is done or not... a bad idea.

How many times have we all been burned by games which just were NOT ready for release. For Example, anyone remember the old Global Operations? A great game, deeply flawed.

The kicker (or kick in the face) for Australians is the "oh, you're in a banana republic, here's your version" at 100% more ($US89.99 RRP), this is after spending a week in the Steam queue at $US49.99. I posted this info in the Brink thread in Gaming forum. Since then I've been told that you can still buy the code from Direct2Drive (or some other online store), and apply that code to Steam, since its a Steamworks game. But still, the prospect of buying an 'unreviewed' game which has some pretty nice videos, but no user-experience-tales, fills me with wallet-based paranoia.

I have more games than I can comfortably list. Yet another unpolished game that will possibly be a bigger dud than Medal Of Honor Multiplayer? NO THANKYOU, DEVELOPERS.

They need to get their act together, instead of relying on the great unwashed crowd to lay down their $$ on a 'sight unseen' product.

The PC version looks beautiful. Netcode...not so much. Multi-player right now is borked, it's impossible to even get a game started. Not something you really want to see on launch day when your game is multi-player focused. I've been running through the challenges and playing against bots locally. Movement is everything I had hoped it would be. I was able to dance around the battlefield with bot difficulty jacked all the way and ninja-medic like a mofo. When the game says move more than shoot, they mean it. Against bots standing still invites death. Given past experience the same holds true against people.

So far I'm not regretting the purchase in the slightest. Shit happens, I'm willing to extend a line of credit to the developers to see what happens over the next few days.

Thanks Ben for saying it so directly. Games need to be finished when they ship, not buggy crap with day-zero patches planned. It's one thing to patch a newly-found major bug or some crazy cheat, but this has gotten ridiculous.

This and the cost factor are the biggest reasons I don't even try to stay current with my game purchases. Most games I pick up have been out at least a year or two by the time I get around to them, and you know, I don't feel like I'm missing anything. If it's become standard practice to ship broken games and sort them out later (or incomplete games and add dlc later), I'm perfectly happy to just wait and actually get my money's worth.

Brink plays damn well on the PC right now. Some minor problems with connecting to servers (which I can't tell whether they're load problems or network bugs), but when it works (which seems to be regularly for some people and intermittently for others), it's a blast.

If you liked either of Splash Damage's previous games and aren't dumb enough to play it on the 360...go buy this. It's fantastic.

There's probably something to be said for making time for big stories, but meh. The GESC chatter is pretty indicative of early returns of awesome.

If you liked either of Splash Damage's previous games and aren't dumb enough to play it on the 360...go buy this. It's fantastic.

Is it just me or are the reviews focusing on the 360? A patch dropped through Steam a little bit ago and my MP issues are gone. There appears to be some load issues, I'm getting some lag in places, but on the PC the game is fine.

"The fact remains that the game reviewers have been playing for the past week will not be the same game you buy at the store, and that makes it impossible for me to do my job in an effective manner."

vs

"The copy of the game that went out to reviewers came on a disc, in retail packaging. We were sent the same code that you will buy in the store"

You guys need to hire some new people to do reviews.

The same code that you buy in the store, presuming instant patch capability when you get back home with it, is not necessarily the same game by the time you've played it. You're buying the patches, too, when you buy the game.

...that said, it could have been expressed a lot better, so point taken.

For what it's worth, I think the publisher should be pleased with this article: if it had been reviewed now, it would have been a terrible review due to broken code. Well done for holding out on it (although I can't help but suspect that a lot of this is based on the hype surrounding it: if this were the new Activision title we'd all just be complaining right now, myself included).

If you liked either of Splash Damage's previous games and aren't dumb enough to play it on the 360...go buy this. It's fantastic.

Is it just me or are the reviews focusing on the 360? A patch dropped through Steam a little bit ago and my MP issues are gone. There appears to be some load issues, I'm getting some lag in places, but on the PC the game is fine.

A lot of ATI cards are getting massive framerate issues that cause the game to be unplayable. When I fire up the server browser it lags so much I can barely pick a server, once I get in the server it isn't much better. The performance is poor enough that I really can't play.

There was a hotfix from ATI, but it doesn't seem to help the issue at all.

There is no single player to this game, it is pretty much all multi. Right now, it is flat out unplayable for me and I see a lot of other complaints from people with ATI cards on the steam forums.

My suggestion is do not buy the PC version of the game right now, it has potential. The launch is flat out disastrous, it will probably go on sale shortly. Maybe it will be patched into a playable state by then.

A lot of ATI cards are getting massive framerate issues that cause the game to be unplayable. When I fire up the server browser it lags so much I can barely pick a server, once I get in the server it isn't much better. The performance is poor enough that I really can't play.

There was a hotfix from ATI, but it doesn't seem to help the issue at all.

Sounds like an ATI problem to me. My nVidia GTX 275 rig is running at 1900x1200 with settings at maximum with a steady frame rate of 45FPS and that's not exactly a state of the art video card.

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There is no single player to this game, it is pretty much all multi. Right now, it is flat out unplayable for me and I see a lot of other complaints from people with ATI cards on the steam forums.

Strange, I'm seeing a lot of ATI problems in the Steam forums across a wide number of games. So either development studios en mass decided to screw ATI users or there are issues with ATI as a company. I'm leaning towards the latter. That said, the game was clearly advertised as focused on multi-player. That's why I bought it. At no point did Splash Damage suggest there would be a riveting single player campaign.

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My suggestion is do not buy the PC version of the game right now, it has potential. The launch is flat out disastrous, it will probably go on sale shortly. Maybe it will be patched into a playable state by then.

My suggestion is do not buy the PC version of the game if you have an ATI card. The launch had a rocky start in the first hour due to multi-player issues but I just put away two solid hours without a single problem. In the first hour there were 75 servers and you could not connect to any of them. Right now the server screen is showing 400+ and connections have been sound.